Rockets take slow route to loss in Boston

Rockets take slow route to loss in Boston

1of2Luis Scola feels the effects of a hard foul by the Celtics' Chris Wilcox.Photo: Elsa

2of2Rockets forward Luis Scola (4) goes up strong between Boston's Greg Stiemsma (54) and Paul Pierce in the first half Tuesday. Scola had 18 points and 14 rebounds, but it wasn't enough to prevent a fourth straight loss.Photo: Elise Amendola

BOSTON - With the end of their losing streak in sight, the Rockets were blinded by the mirage.

Victory seemed within certain reach as the Rockets went into the fourth quarter with a five-point advantage and an 18-1 record when leading after three quarters.

They thought they could touch it when they led by 10 with 5½ minutes left. The Celtics were at 70 points, and the Rockets carried a 25-game winning streak when holding teams shy of 90.

But the Rockets slowed to a pace better suited for a victory lap, and when they did, the win vanished. Boston rallied down the stretch and pulled away in overtime, sending the Rockets to a 97-92 defeat, their fourth consecutive loss and second in a row in overtime.

There was no mystery about where the Rockets went wrong. When they held their biggest lead, they began milking the clock. The Celtics would not let them get away with it.

"We started doing the worst thing you can do on the road, just started playing the score as opposed to playing the game," said Rockets coach Kevin McHale, who was back in the city where he built a Hall of Fame playing career. "We had rhythm going. We kind of came down and lost our rhythm a little bit. We just got too conservative trying to run the clock, trying to play perfect basketball. You just have to go play basketball.

"We were trying to run (the shot) clock to four and score. We're better when we're moving and running."

The Rockets were walking and dribbling. They took a 10-point lead on a Luis Scola jumper with 7:49 left, then fell apart offensively.

The Celtics did put on a trap, forcing the Rockets to waste much of the shot clock to begin running their offense. But the Rockets also did not attack, letting one of the NBA's best defenses take control of the game.

After Scola's jumper, the Rockets were 2-of-16 with three turnovers down the stretch, putting the Celtics' comeback on a tee.

"We just slowed down too much," Kyle Lowry said. "We just played too cautiously at the end. We should have kept pushing and kept playing up-tempo."

The Celtics hit the Rockets with a 16-4 run in the seven minutes after Scola's jumper, with the only Rockets basket coming when Samuel Dalembert tipped in his own missed layup.

The Celtics were ready to finish them off, but with 13.9 seconds left, Rajon Rondo blew a breakaway layup.

Goran Dragic, who played the final 18½ minutes with Kevin Martin on the bench, sank a 20-footer to tie the game with three seconds remaining. When Ray Allen missed a jumper at the buzzer, the Rockets had another chance in overtime, but they could no longer fool themselves.

"The fact that we were in overtime was very lucky," said Scola, who led the Rockets with 18 points and 14 rebounds. "What are the chances that an All-Star player like Rondo misses a wide-open layup with nobody close to him? We had a second chance. It was a present."

The Celtics continued to offer late gifts. With Boston leading by three, Kevin Garnett missed a pair of free throws with 47.5 seconds remaining. Lowry, however, came up empty on a runner from seven feet.

The Rockets got another chance when Paul Pierce, defended by Courtney Lee, could not get the ball out of the backcourt in time for an eight-second violation. But Lowry tried to drive again, this time going deep into traffic before Pierce smacked away his pass.

The Rockets were out of time and chances when Allen put in two free throws. They knew, however, that they had let the game get away when they thought they already had it won.

"I think we lost the game when we had 10 points up … and we couldn't close it," Scola said. "We could have won in overtime, but the reality is that we lost before."

Jonathan Feigen has been the Rockets beat writer since 1998 and a basketball nut since before Willis Reed limped out for Game 7. He became a sports writer because the reporter that was supposed to cover the University of Delaware basketball team decided to instead play one more season of college lacrosse and has never looked back.

Feigen, who has won APSE, APME and United States Basketball Writers Association awards from El Campo to Houston, came to Texas in 1981 to cover the Rice Birds, was Sports Editor in Garland before moving to Dallas to cover everything from the final hurrah of the Southwest Conference to SMU after the death penalty.

After joining the Houston Chronicle in 1990, Feigen has covered the demise of the SWC, the rise of the Big 12 and the Rockets at their championship best.